Life of Royalty
by Uovoc
Summary: The Snow Queen has been shut in her castle for almost a year. One day the wind blows in someone who calls himself the Winter Prince.


Elsa had no power over the wind.

Her castle was covered in ice and frost, and she could summon up a blizzard when the mood struck, but the wind blew where it pleased. It whistled through the ancient castle as if it didn't have a care in the world. Which it probably didn't, since it was the wind.

"Stop laughing at me!" she screamed, convinced that it was chuckling at her plight. Then she smacked her forehead and told herself to quite going crazy. Then she realized that she was talking to herself, so why bother?

She couldn't block up all the windows, since air had to come in somehow, even if only one person needed to breathe it. So the wind continued to blow through the halls of Castle Arendelle.

And one day, it carried someone with it.

At least, that's what Elsa reasoned, since the roads were impassable and the bay had frozen over.

She was slouched in the throne, idly wondering how to pass another empty day, when a nervous cough broke her reverie.

"Um."

Elsa blinked in surprise. A unkempt-looking boy stood before her, staff in hands.

"Are you Elsa?"

Remembering herself, Elsa sat up straight. "I, she said haughtily, "am the Snow Queen. And who, may I ask, are you? How did you get in?" Without any shoes, she mentally added.

He eyed the crown upon her brow. Unhitching the staff from his shoulders, he planted it firmly upon the floor. "You could say that I'm the Winter Prince. And to answer your other question, it wasn't easy."

Elsa pursed her lips. "You? A prince?"

He smirked. "Hey, if I have to call you Queen, then you've got to call me Prince."

"I _am_ the Queen of Arendelle."

"And I'm buddies with Lord Bunnymund of Spring. No offense, your Highness, but your, uh, queendom seems a little lonely."

Purposely or not, he'd hit her where it hurt. Elsa sighed. Better a ragamuffin vagrant than another endless day with only the wind for company. "Who are you, really?"

"First, are you Elsa?"

"Yes," she reluctantly allowed.

"Nice to meet you, Elsa," he grinned, biding his time. Elsa gritted her teeth.

"A pleasure to meet you, too...?" she hinted.

"Jack Frost," he supplied helpfully.

" - Jack Frost," she finished.

He smiled proudly. "Let's go."

"What?" Elsa balked.

"You know what they're saying, out there?" he nodded towards the high cathedral windows. "They say," he went on, "that the Snow Queen hasn't left the castle in over a year. And you know what? I think they're right. You've been hiding in here, letting an entire country go to waste. Don't you know how much fun you could be having?"

Oooh, this kid had no idea how close he was to getting turned into an ice statue.

"Fun!" Elsa gripped the arms of her throne, painfully aware of the ice creeping over it. "You think that this is fun? Turning an entire kingdom into this?"

"It's called winter," said Jack defiantly. "Yeah, I think it's pretty fun."

"It's a curse."

"See, this is what I mean. You're looking at it all wrong. Come on, I'll show you." He offered her his hand.

Elsa didn't take it. "I'll hurt you."

"No, you won't," Jack said patiently. "Watch."

Keeping his eyes on her face, he bent to the floor and lightly brushed his fingers on the marble.

Where he touched, a flower of ice spread over the stone. Elsa gasped.

"You're like me," she whispered.

"Eh, not exactly," he said, straightening back up. "But close enough."

He held out his hand to her again. Hesitantly, Elsa reached out. The moment their skin touched, both jerked away as if burned.

"Sorry," muttered Jack, glancing up at her. "Didn't expect that."

"Sorry," said Elsa, massaging her knuckles.

When she and Anna were small enough for the nursery, they'd found out that if you shuffled across the carpet, your hair would stand up on end. Then they'd discovered that if you touched someone else who'd been doing the same thing- your sister, for instance - an invisible pin would prick you both.

Touching Jack had been like that, except that instead of a quick sting, it felt like he was full of something cold and crackling, something that felt the way lightning looked. Elsa wondered if she had had the same effect on him.

He gingerly took her by the sleeve and led her out onto the balcony overlooking the plaza. The last time she'd stood there, it had been to greet crowds of townspeople heralding their Queen.

"- to fly," Jack was saying.

Elsa snapped back to the present. "Don't be silly. People can't fly."

"You're not just another person," Jack reminded her, "You're the Snow Queen."

"Yes, not the Sky Queen."

Jack shrugged. "Snow comes from the sky."

He hopped up onto the icy railing, balancing on his toes. "Hey, wind!" Before Elsa could stop him, he took a quick step forward, into empty space...

...Where he hung, not falling, suspended by sheer confidence...

...Before dropping like a stone to the ground thirty feet below.

Elsa rushed to the edge of the balcony.

"Are you all right?" she shouted down.

Stunned silence.

"Wait there," she called. "I'm coming."

All that snow seemed to have been good for something. When she reached him, he was pushing himself upright, shocked but unharmed. He looked up at her in disbelief.

"I can't fly."

"It's a common problem," she said wryly, brushing snow out of his hair.

"The wind dropped me."

"It tends to do that," she said, wondering if he'd hit his head.

"It said it belongs to you."

"It - what?" Elsa was taken aback.

Jack inspected his staff, which was as unbroken as he was. He deftly flipped it over his shoulder."Beats me. You've never even ridden it."

He cocked his head, listening. Elsa heard only the ever-present rush of the wind. "I'm trespassing, apparently. Huh. Well, that'd explain why it was so hard to get in. But it says, it's not going to make you fly just because some foreigner thinks you should. She doesn't know what she's missing!" He shouted into the white sky.

Of the whistling howl that followed, Elsa made neither head nor tail, but Jack scowled fiercely.

"I'm trying to help her, you know! Come on," he turned to Elsa, "I'll show you something else."

* * *

As Elsa watched, Jack blew across an already frosted windowpane, thickening its layer of ice. He scratched at it experimentally, shaking his head.

"This ice is wrong." He tried ineffectually to rub the window clear.

"What's the matter?" asked Elsa. "Ice is ice."

Jack shook his head at her. "This is _your_ ice. It's like the wind, it doesn't listen to me."

Intrigued, Elsa blew upon the glass herself, causing a web of six-pointed stars to overlay Jack's fernlike frost. It was true, their ice was different.

"Aren't there any clean windows in this place?" asked Jack, casting about the palace chamber. "Cleaning service could use some work."

"We could scrape one off," suggested Elsa. There were some drawbacks to living in an abandoned castle by yourself.

They located a butter knife in the kitchens. Once Jack had cleared a palm-sized area of window, he handed the knife off to her. Breathing upon the clear glass, he waited until his frost had bloomed all the way to the edges, where the remainder of Elsa's ice kept it from spreading farther. Carefully, he traced the outline of a hummingbird.

Frowning in concentration, he made a motion as if to gently gather the image up in his hands. Then, somehow, he _pulled it off the glass_. As it released, it filled out into a small, ghostly form.

Jack opened up his cupped hands, and - Elsa caught her breath - the tiny bird rose into the air, whirring and darting exactly as if it were alive.

She giggled as it flitted inquisitively about her crown. Then, without warning, it burst into a whirl of powdery snow.

"They don't last very long," noted Jack, who had been watching appreciatively.

"It was lovely," said Elsa.

He grinned. "There's something only winter can do. Now you try." He grabbed the butter knife from her and set about preparing a new section of window.

Elsa spread her ice across the surface. But when she tried to draw, she only succeeded in further thickening the layer. Huffing in frustration, she pulled in her power, tried to keep the ice inside, but it still leaked out through her fingertips.

She clenched her fists."I can't control it."

"Try again," urged Jack. "It's pretty easy."

The same thing happened again.

"It's easy for _you_," she said, stamping her foot (causing a streak of ice to skitter out from under the hem of her dress). "I'm cursed."

"Why do you keep saying that?" asked Jack, sidestepping the ice tendrils. "You probably have even more power than I do."

"I drove my people from their homes. I took away their lives. My country is dead, all because of this!" Elsa flung her arms out at the frozen castle around them.

"You can try to make me believe that winter is special, Jack Frost. But you can't tell it to my people."

"I - "

Elsa didn't let him finish. She turned her back and fled.

"Elsa, wait!"

For once the wind was helpful, pushing at her back, slamming doors as she went. Then the last door closed, and Elsa was in the old nursery, which she hadn't set foot in since, since they were little girls, before anyone had known anything about a curse...

Elsa slid to the ground and buried her face in her hands.

The wind tugged at her hair.

"Go away," she pleaded.

It obliged, sending the shutters swinging on the way out.

She stayed in the nursery long enough for the sky to turn dark and the room to turn blue. She didn't get cold.

Presently, an arm, holding a staff, hooked over the windowframe, followed by a leg, and then a face and torso. Jack dropped noiselessly into the room. He stood there awkwardly, not daring to approach her yet.

"Sorry about your people."

Silence.

Now he took a few tentative steps. When she didn't blast him on the spot, he crouched down besider her, cupping something protectively in his hands.

Curious despite her self, Elsa lifted her head a fraction. Jack encouraged her with a sideways smile and opened his fingers to reveal his creation.

A tiny fern - or was it a flower? - bloomed in his palm, fronds gently fluttering in an invisible breeze. It was exactly as if Jack had simply scooped his ice off the ground.

"You never heard me say this," he said, "but spring's pretty impressive. I tried to hold it off once - " he winced at the memory - "yep, just once was enough. You probably don't have an Easter bunny here, but it's the same all over. Life comes back. Hope survives. Even, " he pointed at his chest, "in here."

Jack straightened up. "I have to go," he said, fingering his staff. "There's somewhere else I gotta be. You need me, too, so I'll try to come back.

"I know your story, Elsa. One way it goes is, you become the Snow Queen, like you're doing. The other way it could to is, you turn the winter into _you_."

He rubbed his neck, thinking. "It sounds confusing, but there's a difference. I think you're a good person. Sense of fun could use some work, but... You really love your people.

"Keep that. It'll be important. I don't know how, or why, but I can tell."

A nudge of wind fluttered his hair. Jack broke off to listen. "It says it's happy to give me a ride out. That's a real pal you got, here.

"Think about what I said, okay? You're Elsa, Elsa. Remember it."

The wind was downright shoving now, so he let it buffet him towards the open window.

"Don't let me down," he said sharply. Elsa couldn't tell whether the words were directed towards her or to the fickle wind.

The gale picked up, and this time it carried Jack with it. He whirled into the night like a snowflake.

So he really could fly, then.

* * *

Elsa stayed in the nursery a while longer. She was acutely aware of how empty the castle was. The presence of just one other person had made that much difference.

She suddenly wished Jack were still there. But he had long since left, and she had no idea of how to reach him. Based on past events, she didn't trust the wind to carry her message.

Her gaze fell upon the light pile of powder that was all that remained of Jack's fern.

_"I am the Snow Queen."_

Snow, not frost.

* * *

The sisters' nursemaid had read them stories about the far northern lands, where water couldn't move for the cold, and little girls froze in the streets. _And that's why we are so blessed to live in Arendelle_, the woman lectured them afterwards.

Anna had hated the nurse and eventually threw tantrums at the merest mention of storytime, but Elsa had secretly loved the tales. What was it like, she wondered, to hold a piece of water in your hands?

A child of winter, even then.

it was those tales she thought back to now. What was it that the northern children had done? They'd gone sliding down hills on wooden boards, and threw snowballs, and built people out of snow...

Elsa closed her eyes, summoning her power. It flowed too easily, and she clumsily tried to direct the current.

Snow, not ice, assembled into a mass before her.

Elsa opened her eyes and cringed.

It was nothing like Jack's ethereal frost forms. An oblong head, a barrel of a body, two stubby legs. Still, it was something she had created. Anyway, she wasn't sure how long it would last. Snow was more substantial than frost, after all.

She'd have to get him a better nose. Was it a turnip that you were supposed to use? A carrot? She'd figure it out. But in the meantime...

"I think I'll call you Olaf," said Elsa.

Olaf opened his eyes and grinned.


End file.
